There are many things that Tory MPs and members will have on their minds as they pick their next leader. What will they do to tackle the cost-of-living crisis? Will they continue Britain’s continent-leading support for Ukraine? Where will they find the money from if they want to re-wallpaper the Downing Street flat?
But, one would think, a more important than any of those vital questions is this one: who will be the most likely to save my seat ? As depressing as it sounds, if the Conservative Party exists for anything, it exists to keep Labour and their cronies out of power. Simply winning a majority of seats next time around will prevent Starmer in Downing Street and forestall the chances of another Scottish independence referendum.
So it is natural for us to examine the question of who, of the remaining candidates, is most likely to win the next election. Penny Mordaunt raised a few eyebrows from her competitors at Sunday’s debate when she suggested it was her – and, indeed, a poll from JL Partners last week suggested she was further behind Keir Starmer than any other candidate.
In fact, JL Partners – and our occasional contributor James Johnson – have been suggesting that the former Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is the person best placed to take the Tories to victory in 2024. That same survey that had Mordaunt behind Starmer by fifteen points had Sunak ahead by one. Not only was that more than any of the other candidates mentioned, but much better than Boris Johnson’s current performance.
This was reinforced at the weekend by another survey from JL Partners that suggested 48 percent of those who backed the Tories in 2019 think Sunak would be a good prime minister, compared to 39 percent who said the same of Truss and 33 percent who said it of Mordaunt. It also featured an MRP model which mapped the survey results onto every seat in the country. Among all voters, Sunak had the highest net approval in 76 percent of the seats the Tories won in 2019.
Game, set, and match to Sunak? Not quite. As Ben Walker of The New Statesman has pointed out, the public exposure Sunak has received over the last two years means he is much better known than any other candidate. A recent Savanta ComRes poll had Sunak recognised by 66 percent of the public, Truss recognised by 33 percent and Mordaunt by only 11 percent.
So Sunak’s appeal to the public must be measured against his status as the most well-known of the remaining field. Both Walker and The Spectator’s Steven Fielding have used this to suggest that Labour would welcome a Sunak government. Starmer would focus on the revelations about the former Chancellor’s wife’s tax status, his record as Chancellor, and his difference from the average voter. Polling has suggested he is the candidate that even Tory voters believe is the most out of touch.
Whilst Walker and Fielding have suggested Labour would think any of the remaining candidates is beatable, both have highlighted Penny Mordaunt as the one who would give Labour the biggest fright. That is mainly because she could present herself as a clean break from the Johnson regime – something that cannot be said about Truss or Sunak.
Yet this should not be exaggerated. Fielding has compared Mordaunt to John Major, a relative unknown providing a modicum of calm after the divisive rule of a bigger personality. Yet Major had been Foreign Secretary or Chancellor for around a year and a half by the time he replaced Margaret Thatcher. That is significantly longer than Truss has been Foreign Secretary, and only a few months less than Sunak was Chancellor for.
The truth is, as with his Thatcher, Johnson’s dominance of the political scene will mean his departure from Downing Street will make anyone who replaces him seem like a fresh start. So picking Mordaunt just because she seems the most distant from the current Prime Minister is a bit of a non-starter. That is especially as, being a boisterous blonde Brexiteer who may have said a few dicey things about Turkey in 2016, she might not be as big a break as some might be hoping for.
Moreover, it has been a notable feature of our surveys over the last week or so that as members see more of the candidates, their views on them shift significantly. The more our panel has seen of Badenoch and Truss, the more they like them. The more they have seen of Sunak, the more he has recovered from the hit he took following the Spring Statement. And they more they see of Mordaunt, the more she has faded from her position as the initial favourite.
Such a shift in perceptions of candidates isn’t likely to be limited to Tory members. Anyone who remembers the contrasting fortunes of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn during the psychodrama of the 2017 election can attest to that.
But also remember that Boris Johnson came to office in 2019 as the most unpopular new Prime Minister on record. By Christmas that year, he had a majority of 80, and looked set to dominate the politics of the next decade (and somewhere in Wuhan, a hungry man fancied some bat soup). The crucial point is that good or bad strategy can change the perception of a leader. First impressions do not always last.
As such, the sort of questions MPs and members should be asking themselves when they consider which candidate will win the next election are those so often raised by our columnist James Frayne. The agenda that won the 2019 election was popular. Not just delivering Brexit and defeating Corbyn, but “levelling-up”: delivering better lives and more investment for neglected working-class communities.
Personally, I think “levelling-up” is a poor phrase that is ill-defined and meaningless to most voters. But, for all that, I think those Red Wallers who delivered us a majority in 2019 will know it when they see it. They gave us their vote in the hope it would mean genuine change.
Revived high streets. New industries. Growing opportunities. Delivering that by the next election is what will keep our majority in two years’ time, not a good debate performance today. So the candidate MPs should back is the one they think answers this question: who is most likely to grip the Whitehall machine and deliver that agenda?
Sunak has said little about “levelling-up” whilst being Chancellor, and he differs from most of his recent predecessors in not having strayed far from his Treasury brief. Truss and Mordaunt, meanwhile, have both largely held international briefs at a Cabinet level, and have had little chance to expostulate on domestic matters in office.
Truss contributed to Britannia Unchained, a manifesto for revived Thatcherism. Mordaunt co-authored Greater: Britain After the Storm, a product of mainstream progressivism. Sunak hasn’t written a book, but he did write a pamphlet for Policy Exchange. And he was also the man who produced the furlough scheme in about a week.
So rather than listen to candidates blather on about polls or punditry, take a look at their writings and records, and decide which is likely to complete the mission that this Government has stumbled so badly on.